Media groups challenge DCS' fee

New cost estimate for records is $9K

May 10, 2013

Written by

Bobby Allyn

The Tennessean

The Department of Children’s Services’ latest price estimate for obtaining records that The Tennessean and other media groups have sought for months is no more efficient or cost-effective than its two previous estimates, according to a filing submitted on Thursday by the newspaper’s attorney.

The amount, approximately $9,000, is far higher than what a state chancellor recently agreed to as reasonable — about $1,067, attorney Robb Harvey argued. That amount, which was based on the cost of photocopying files, already has been paid to the state.

Paying about $9,000 for removing sensitive information from the records, according to the new filing, “is not supported by the facts and does not comport with the law.”

The state’s new cost estimate includes paying four paralegals $33 an hour, which the state has called a discounted rate. Harvey, who is representing The Tennessean, said the state expects to work at a pace of six pages an hour.

In addition, the state’s projections for the number of work hours required to process the files appears to be inconsistent across the three estimates, Harvey wrote in the new filing.

In April, Davidson County Chancellor Carol McCoy ordered the state to provide The Tennessean and other media outlets with redacted case files for 50 children with prior DCS contact who died or nearly died in the months leading up to July 1, 2012. The agency has since said it is unable to provide records for eight of them.

The 50 files are less than a fourth of the total sought by the media group. McCoy has said she will make a determination on how all of the records for each child sought by the media group should be released.

That decision would apply to more than 200 case files originally requested. The exact number isn’t known because DCS has not yet said how many children fall into the categories sought by the media group.

The state cannot charge for redacting those records or crisscrossing the state to pick them up, McCoy said. Attorneys for the state previously had stated that it would cost $55,584 to produce those records. They later dropped that figure to $34,225.

McCoy said media groups must pay 50 cents per copy for the records. That price is more than triple the standard copying costs for state records.

Last week, attorneys for DCS issued a notice saying the agency intends to add thousands of dollars to the cost of releasing records on the 42 children, which, according to the state, would encompass fees to hire, train and supervise paralegals outside of the department to review the records.

Federal and state law requires that DCS, a $630 million child welfare agency, release information relating to child deaths and near deaths. McCoy ruled DCS must bear the cost for redacting sensitive information.

DCS’ new estimate of about $9,000 for 1,600 pages of records for 42 of those children — the agency said it is unable to provide records for eight of them — puts the total cost about $5 per page , which averages to about $212 for each case.

For the past eight months, The Tennessean has sought records of children who in some capacity had been involved with DCS before their death or near death. The newspaper requested the records to shed light on what happened to the children and exactly what steps DCS took to safeguard the children.

In response, the agency has released only partial case files on the deaths of four children. In other instances, it provided summary information, some of which contained conflicting accounts of children’s ages, dates of death and that did not detail what the agency had done to protect the children.

The Tennessean in December led a statewide group of news outlets in suing DCS for those records.

On Friday, DCS and media organizations are scheduled to return to court.

“High costs discourage requests, and we are seeking transparency concerning one of the State’s most fundamental obligations — safeguarding our children,” Harvey wrote in a statement.